Marty Peters

My name is Marty Peters and I am from the town of Hamden, Connecticut. I am nineteen years old, a freshman here at SUNY Purchase, and am enrolled in the jazz program. I have been playing music since I started piano lessons at around the age of eight, and became deeply interested in jazz in middle school after hearing Illinois Jacquet play his solo on the song "Flyin' Home".
Throughout middle and high school I had some very influential music teachers and advisors who helped guide me in learning this music. I spent several years in many different jazz ensembles at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, and in a local arts magnet high school playing a variety of music and learning a great deal about how to express myself through the language of jazz.

In my last two years of high school I joined a big band that played Monday nights, and was already playing a lot of jazz with my friends at local venues. I very much so look forward to the coming years at Purchase, and to further exploring what I can bring to the music and what the music can bring to me.